Archive for May, 2007

I seem to have taken up knitting ramen.

Sunday, May 20th, 2007

I believe the “pile of ramen” description of lace knitting pre-blocking is a Yarn Harlot thing. It’s absolutely true. Case in point: the tiny doily I finished this afternoon, currently sulking because it’s not getting blocked for a bit yet. (There was an adventure in blocking already this week, with the red … swatch-doily.) The purple thing is #80 crochet cotton, knit on 2.25mm needles which normally do not seem quite so horrendously large…

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The red thing wants its glamour shot, but the best I can do is this, which is a bit wobbly from being on a not very flat surface.

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Also, the theory on knitting faster to prevent running out of yarn may not work for getting that extra couple of yards, but it certainly gets the knitting done – and now I’ve started knitting on an edging for the jellyfish shawl, because I need to wave it at some people and demonstrate that it is, in fact, flat. This edging thing is fascinating, if a little odd… I hope it works. I am just iffy enough at actual math that I’m not convinced about the whole round flat object geometry thing.

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It has been raining, as it does in New England, for the last week, hence the increase in knitting and decrease in cranes. I think it’s cleared up a bit, and if the weather continues to be at least a little reasonable, there should be some paper in the wild over the next few days.

Zing!

Friday, May 11th, 2007

Action shots, just for you. Porter Square. The wee bird is doing quite well in its new home.

The first one is, ok, perhaps an unattractive angle.

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But man, the second one’s blurry.

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And the people at that coffee shop (and the bookstore, but I didn’t ask them about cranes yet, because… that might be excessive) are fantastic. Their coffee is pretty good too.

Cranes in the wild.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

This one was successfully released into Cafe Zing in Porter Square early this morning. We’ll see how it copes with the busy lifestyle of the coffeehouse bird. Probably pretty well, it’s one of the tough linen-cotton papers.

How subversive should these cranes be? I mean, is it reasonable to put them in completely bizarre places – on stop signs and the like – or is that something I need to be careful about? I like the idea of having them scattered in high-traffic areas, which is one of the reasons there’s one at Zing, but how far can I go with that?

On a related note, I wonder if people would buy crane mobiles. I’m really liking the one I’ve got in the house, and I think I could use old wire hangers to make more… Even if wire hangers aren’t quite as exciting as random sticks, it’s easier to find hangers than really good sticks. There’s also the possibility of taking a little inspiration from Joseph Cornell and doing boxes, if I can get my hands on some cigar boxes (or wine boxes; I’ve already got one of those waiting to be made into a first attempt at this). So many options! So little time!

This is seriously harder than it looks.

Monday, May 7th, 2007

But we needed a makeover.

So the cranes came out of their garbage bag (why were they in a garbage bag in the first place?)

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And got made into things. Mostly on strings. With felt balls – I have a lot of felt balls. There have been nights where most of the household got a little carried away with the felt balls.

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And put on the stick. One of my housemates brought home an interesting stick, which has been made into a thing-that-looks-neat-hanging-from the ceiling. So. Hanging things off the hanging stick. Fun!

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It has a certain charm. I think it’ll catch on.

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Also, earrings, because accessories are absolutely vital to existence. Right?

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Besides, they’re satisfyingly dangly. If you like that sort of thing.

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If you were wondering…

Saturday, May 5th, 2007

Instead of being a good, staid, focused artist, I am working on all sorts of things… Including the intensely bizarre process of lace knitting. I’ve got this round thing – which might end up being a shawl, if it’s big enough, but otherwise will be some kind of decorative object. The lovely ladies of my knitting night, they say shawls are like large breed puppies. They’re absolutely right. It started out cute and wee, and just keeps getting more and more large and ungainly. I suspect it won’t grow into its paws until it’s been blocked.

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Which makes me feel slightly better about moving so slowly on other things. It’s not like I’m not actively creating, I just have a lot of plates to choose from.

I wasn’t kidding.

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Except, hmm, I’m not sure how to make pictures show up. Bear with me. …ahh, there we go.

Have a couple of pictures of the very first crane in the wild. This is in South Boston, at a little inlet of ocean. The second picture is, erm, blurry as all get out because the light was terrible and my camera continues to think it’s smarter than me and focus on strange things.

Crane in the wild

Crane in the wild

Heh. Oops.

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

So. I may have slacked off and neglected to release the first crane into the wild yesterday. It’s out there now, though. Put one in South Boston this morning. I don’t have my camera cables with me, so you’ll have to take my word for it until I get a chance to put up the picture.